


Rescue From the Dursley's

by OldDVS



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash, Rescue from the Dursleys, only Harry/Severus if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 14:27:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19465900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldDVS/pseuds/OldDVS
Summary: Another Snape rescues Harry from the Dursleys scenario.





	Rescue From the Dursley's

**Author's Note:**

> Written in, what, 2002? Intended as part of a larger work but stands on its own.

Rescue from the Dursley's by Tara Tory

Severus Snape said, “No.”

Albus Dumbledore nodded and smiled and said, “I can’t send the others. We need Harry back now. We have warning of an attack, perhaps as early as tomorrow. You must go, remove the boy from the Dursley house, and get him back here.” 

“He won’t come with me. He hates me.”

“Yes, yes. Nevertheless, I’m sure you can convince him.” 

“There are others, more familiar with Muggle ways.”

“But no one as qualified in wizard ways. We’ve no time for an argument, I’m afraid. The Ministry representative will be here any minute.”

“Very well.” Without a further word, the disgruntled Potion’s master got up and stomped out of the room. Dumbledore turned to the next task at once. So much to do....

Snape went down to his room and prepared as if he were going on a mission. He showered and dressed quickly, his light robe over black pants and a black shirt. Knife in his boot. Another at his wrist. Wand tucked in the other cuff. Hair tied back with a magical band that would release at a word. Potions in small vials tucked in four unlikely places. He cast a glamour to make it hard to focus on his face, and, rather strangely, brushed his teeth and cleaned his hands and filed his fingernails.

He then collected a small portkey. Potter, if he were a normal wizarding lad, would have learned to apparate by now, but it had been decided to wait and have him taught in August, with the mudbloods. One always waited longer before teaching them, they found it difficult to learn for some reason. The task had to be broken down and taught in smaller segments. He found it tiresome even thinking about it and was glad he had never been asked to teach one of the special summer sessions.

Ready. 

He apparated to Privet Drive–what odd little boxes of houses–and slid into the shadows to check out the area. No one lurked around the house. He slid closer. Noisy. Were they entertaining or was it one of those machines? Machines, he decided. More than one. One upstairs, playing music, one downstairs presenting crashing sounds and snatches of music between shouts of dialogue. 

When he knocked on the door, he was not sure what he would say. It hardly mattered, as long as he could get in. That was more difficult that it looked. There were protections around this house which repelled magic. It was like pushing through jelly to even get up to the door.

It opened. “Yes?” It was a wispy woman, perhaps his own age, sharp-faced and suspicious.   
“My name is Snape. I would like to speak to Mr. Vernon Dursley.”

Behind the woman a large young man paused. “Dad, it’s for you!” he shouted, and walked on towards the kitchen. 

“May I ask your business?” the woman asked.

“A financial proposition.” He turned his quelling glare on her. It worked rather well, and when he stepped forward, she stepped back. He was in the house and closing the door behind him before she knew it.

Vernon was frowning as he came from the lounge, paper trailing from one hand. His frown deepened as he saw the robe. “Wizards aren’t welcome here,” he growled out.

“Even if it will enrich you significantly?” Snape asked.

“Best to have no dealings with your lot at all. Get out of my house.” 

“No. I’ve come for the boy.” 

“Why? He’s a bloody useless prat. Frickin’ idiot,” Vernon added.

“Then you won’t mind selling him to me?” 

There was a silence. 

“Are you a Pervert?” asked Dudley with interest. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, his words slightly muffled by a large pastry, half of which was in his hand, half of which had been crammed in his mouth. 

“No. I wish a servant for the summer. I will pay you two hundred pounds.” Snape made the offer with nothing in his pockets at all.

“Each month.” Vernon began his bargaining by leaning forward aggressively. 

“For the summer, but I will be responsible for returning him to school at the end of the summer. You’ll have no reason to have to ever look at him again.” 

“Four hundred.”

“Two hundred and fifty.”

“Not a cheque. Notes.” Vernon was looking quite interested.

So he didn’t want a record of this transaction? Snape had been doing the wizard equivalent of recording this conversation for Dumbledore since the moment the door opened. He smirked. “Notes,” he agreed. 

Vernon held out his hand. 

Snape put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a handful of notes, which he counted into the sweaty palm. Vernon’s big fingers curved around them greedily. “They’d better not vanish,” he said, proving that he had some experience with unscrupulous wizards. 

“Perfectly good,” Snap assured him, and it should be, as it was taken from the Ministry’s own vault, from funds authorized for his use. Quite traceable. “Now, the young man?”

Vernon turned and climbed the stairs. He hadn’t expected Snape to come after him, but after the first startled glance he merely trudged on. He produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, pushing it open. 

Potter looked up from where he was sprawled on the bed. He leaped up at once, fear in his eyes as his gaze jumped from Vernon to Snape and back again.

“Get your things, Potter. You’re coming with me. Are you frozen? Move!”

“Sorry, sir. The closet is behind the door when it’s open like this. I can’t get to the closet door to get my clothes with all of you standing there,” Potter explained as he scrambled up. When he closed the door to the room, The Dursleys were on the outside and Snape on the inside. “What’s wrong? Why are you here?” Potter hissed. The lad was at least working as he talked, pulling a few pieces of clothing off the hangers, prying up a floorboard and bringing out some books and his wand. Other things were retrieved from under the edge of the curtain, above the lintel, and from the drawers. Potter wrapped it all in a shirt, except for his wand, which he slid under his shirt. When Snape didn’t answer, Potter said, “Everything else is locked up in the cupboard under the stairs.”

“Locked up?” 

“Everything from school.”

“Locked up. Including you, I observe.” Snape looked him up and down as looking for signs of his misbehavior 

“I’m in here unless they need something cleaned.”

“Meals?”

Potter shrugged.

“What did you do?”

Harry froze. His face went rather blank and he didn’t answer.

“What did you do?” Snape repeated, more sharply.

Potter whirled to face him. “I didn’t do anything!”

“You want me to believe your family locked you up–for no reason at all?” 

“I...You never believe me. Why should it be any different out of school? Why am I even bothering?” Potter turned away, apparently to help him gain control of his emotions, because when he turned back, his face was expressionless and his eyes blank.

Snape didn’t allow it. “Why did they lock you up, Potter?” he growled, taking hold of one arm and giving Potter a shake. 

Potter didn’t look at him. “They just hate me. Same as you do.”

“I ask again. What. Did. You. Do.”

“I got born.” 

“Another facetious answer? Are you so willing to pay the consequences?” Snape hissed.

“I’ll pay them no matter what, won’t I?” Potter said tiredly, picked up his pile of possessions and with one arm, he jerked open the door. He stomped down the stairs. Vernon had opened the little door under the stairs and was taking the lock from the trunk. He’d have left it locked and kept the key for spite, but then he’d have lost his good lock. Aunt Petunia was watching from the kitchen door, Dudley from the lounge. 

Snape stood on the stairs, looking down on them. Staring at the expressions on the faces of the Muggles. Frowning Vernon, nervous Petunia, smirking Dudley. He watched as Potter opened the trunk–a trunk less than half full– put his belongings in it and closed it. Snape came down the last few steps, tapped the trunk with his wand to make it small, and pocketed it. 

“You have an owl?” Snape inquired.

“With Ron.”

Petunia spoke up. “The thing smelled foul. We told him not to bring it into the house again.” 

“Or we’d kill it,” Dudley said with relish. 

“Nothing else?” Snape asked Potter.

“Nothing else.” 

Snape nodded turned to the Dursleys. “It is my obligation to inform you that when we leave, the wards will fail.”

“What?” Dursley asked. 

“Wards?” Dudley echoed.

“Protections put around the house by wizards. Some provide physical protection, others bestow what might be called--good luck. They were put here for Potter’s protection, but he will not be back, and so they will not be renewed. You may notice the difference,” he said dryly, and with great understatement. With hardly another breath he said, “Follow me, Potter,” and pulled the door open. 

Potter followed him down the block and into the shadow of a huge tree. Neither had said anything more. Snape cast a silencing charm and turned. Potter found himself between the tree and the professor and tried to move, but a quick arm shoved him against the tree hard enough for the air to leave his lungs in a ‘ooof’.

“Answers, Mr. Potter. I’ve always found you obstructive and vague. Be aware that I am now not allowing you that license. You’ll tell me the truth or I’ll have it from you with veritaserum. Choose.”

Potter shrugged and tried to pull away. Snape reached in to his robes and brought out a small bottle. Holding it in his hand, he used his teeth to pull out the cork. Still holding Potter by the shoulder, he kneed him in the upper thigh, hard enough for Potter to hunch and open his mouth automatically. Snape poured the potion in. Still with one hand he replaced the cork and hid the bottle away again. “It won’t take long.”

Potter said nothing. Snape did not lessen the pressure of his hand and Potter wiggled, trying to avoid the discomfort at his back. Snape gave him a warning shake. He gave another when Potter’s hand crept towards his wand.

“Your name?” Snape asked.

“Harry Potter.” 

“Age?” 

“Seventeen.”

“Best friend?” Snape asked, ignoring the look Harry gave him that said, ‘You know all this–why are you asking this?’ 

“Ron Weasley.” Harry sighed and said it.

“Lover?”

The silence changed. Harry struggled for a moment and then said, “No.” 

“Name the adult you trust the most.”

More silence. At last, Harry said, “Dumbledore?” It was a question, and not an answer.

Snape whispered, “You trust no one?”

“Not one,” Potter echoed. 

Snape lessened the pressure on Potter’s shoulder and said, “Tell me about your earliest memory.”   
“I’m in my cupboard.”

“Your cupboard?”

“Under the stairs. They kept me there. Sometimes they never turned the light off. Sometimes it burned out and they forgot to replace it and I’d be in the dark for days. It was one of the light times. I was looking at the pictures in a magazine I had from the bin. I stole it.”

“Hardly theft, if it was discarded.” 

“I liked the pictures.” 

“How old were you?” Snape asked.

“I don’t know. No school yet. Four. Maybe.”

“They kept you locked in that room, under the stairs. Where your trunk was later kept?” Snape asked, for absolute verification.

Potter nodded. “Until I was eleven. When I came back from Hogwarts the first year they moved me upstairs to Dudley’s second room. They had to, really. I wouldn’t fit in the cupboard anymore.”

“Did they physically abuse you?”

“Not–often. Sometimes I was hungry. If I didn’t do my chores right, they’d send me to bed without my dinner. But I usually got breakfast. I had to cook it. Every morning. I’m quite good at sausages. Only they counted those so I almost never had any. And bacon, and–“

”Do they hit you?”

“Dudley does. Aunt Petunia mostly pinches. Uncle Vernon shoves.”

”Do they show affection at other times?” 

Harry said, “No. They hate me. They tell me so.”

“Have they provided for you? Clothes?”

“Dudley’s cast offs.”

“Dressed you in rags, did they?” Snape said sarcastically.

“Not rags, you know. They buy Dudley the best. Usually they were in good shape when I got them–he outgrew them quickly. My school robes were the first things I ever had all my own.”

“Do they sexually abuse you?” Snape asked, his voice very matter of fact.

“They–not-- Dudley likes to kick–there–if you’re down. He’ll grab and twist, too. Uncle Vernon–“

”Uncle Vernon?” Snape asked, in a low, silky voice that made Potter shiver. “What about dear Uncle Vernon?”

“Sometimes–after he hits me–he gets–he has—he–“

”Get hard?” Snape speculated.

Potter nodded, although it could barely be seen in the dark. 

“But he never does anything. To me.”

“Your uncle Vernon had no qualms about selling you to a completely unknown stranger, possibly for indecent purposes. Has he done that before?”

“No. Just–veiled threats.”

“Charming.” Snape said nothing else. 

Eventually, Potter said, “Professor?” 

“Ah. What a problem you are, Potter. As usual. Tell me, Potter. Has my potion failed *me*? Are you lying? Or did the Sorting Hat fail *you*?”

“Sir?”

Snape screamed at him. “Why the bloody hell aren’t you in Slytherin?”

“Sir?” Potter echoed, rather stupidly.

Snape roared on. “All the abused children are put into Slytherin. The hat is so instructed! The hat put you in,” he paused to practically spit the word, “Gryffindor!” 

“I asked it to.”

“You did WHAT?”

“Asked it to.” 

“It wanted to place you in Slytherin and you somehow convinced it to do otherwise. Wonderful. Brilliant. Which meant we assumed your home life was fine and left you untreated, unsupported and sent you back into your own little version of hell SIX fuckin’ TIMES.”

“Sorry. Sir. But I met Malfoy and I was trying to avoid–you know. Being hurt more. I thought I would be hurt. In Slytherin. I thought I was avoiding being hurt.” Harry explained.

“Did no one help?”

“Well, the Weasley’s did–a bit. And Hermione.”

“A bit,” Snape repeated. “Shite.” He sighed. “Too late now to switch your house.”

“Oh, yes!” Harry agreed fervently. 

“I’ll ask Albus to give you to me for the summer. It may be enough,” Snape said, almost talking to himself. 

“What! But–“

”You’ve missed six years worth of lessons, Mr. Potter. Lessons every other Slytherin has had. Lessons on how to protect yourself, with and without magic. Lessons on your own value and self-worth Lessons on choices, on power, on freedom. Lessons designed–you idiot– specifically for you and your situation!”

“Is that why you favor the Slytherins? Because they’ve all been abused?” Harry dared to ask. 

“They’re not all abused. Some have other problems. Some have rage to deal with, or fear, or the desire to dominate and hurt. It’s my job to make them as civilized as I can.”

“But that has to be an impossible job,” Harry said, and then covered his mouth for fear it was as bad as it had sounded. 

“Tell me about it,” Snape sighed. “Try to make something whole when it has been shattered so completely that some of the pieces are missing. The sorting hat must have decided that all your pieces were available for reconstruction, and you could do it on your own.” Snape shook his head. “Come along. We can do nothing about it now. We will report this to Dumbledore.”   
He turned. “Oh, Merlin,” he growled. He jerked Potter close, pulled out his portkey, pressed one end of it against Potter’s cheek and braced them both. 

They ended up in a heap on the floor of the Headmaster’s study.

“My goodness. Are you all right?” Dumbledore looked over the rims of his glasses at the two sprawled on his floor.

“Yes,” Snape said, standing up and hauling Potter up by one arm. “There’s an owl in the tree outside of Potter’s–of the Dursleys house. Watching. Not a letter owl. Animagus, I should think. You may have been right to send me for him. We got out just before it arrived. By the way, did you know the Muggles kept him locked up, occasionally starved and beat him, and abused him verbally?” Snape asked it so casually that Potter was caught by surprise and just stared at him.

“Did they?” Dumbledore asked, very quietly.

Potter opened his mouth to speak. The words did not come out. He managed the barest nod.   
The old man sighed. “I knew they were not the guardians I would have chosen. But the other places offered were not safer. The Malfoy’s offered to take him,” Dumbledore said, as if it explained everything. Perhaps it did. 

“Oh. I could have been locked in an attic or dungeon instead of a cupboard,” Potter realized.

“I see you understand,” Dumbledore said, ignoring the perplexed look still on the boy’s face. “Now, I think we should–“

”He’ll be with me.”

“No, no, I’ve imposed upon you enough, Severus. I’ve arranged–“ 

”He’s missed his Slytherin training. Despite ending up in Gryffindor, you know that he should have been in my house. He will stay in the dungeons this summer and learn something for once.” 

“But–“ Potter began to protest.

“None of that, Potter. I hear enough whinging during the school year. No use making the summer any more hellish than it is going to be. Now, when was the last time you ate?” Snape asked. 

“Breakfast.” 

“Then we will feed you. Albus.” Snape bowed to the older man and turned, his robe swirling out with his trademark style.

Potter looked at Dumbledore, who nodded at him. “Go along for now, my boy. I will speak to you tomorrow–alone.”

Potter nodded, managed a smile, and then slowly followed the Potion’s master out the door, down the corridor and to the dungeon stairs. As they started down, Snape began speaking  
.  
“Some find the dungeons soothing and safe. A den, a place with doors to keep enemies out. Others find them confining and feel trapped. Which are you?”

“Um. Trapped.”

“Yes. All that time in a cupboard,” Snape growled. “You’d not do well in Azkaban, would you? For those with your reaction, we do a tour. Every room in the dungeons has two ways out, with the exception of ten rooms once used as cells, which are the rooms I use for storage. I will show you all the ways out. In addition, you may as well know that Hogwarts itself does not like to trap or confine the students. It will make a way out if you are sincerely in need of it. I will show you how to petition the castle. This will also allow you some control over moving staircases.”

“Thank you.”

“You sound less than enthused. We don’t teach it to all of the students, no. The best magic, Potter, is that magic you teach yourself.”

“Oh.”

“You sound like a cod-brained squib. Here we are.” Snape tapped on the door with his wand. “My rooms. Do not make yourself at home.”

“Yes, sir.” They entered a rather ordinary sitting room. Some book-filled shelves on the wall, a faded rug over the stone floor, a bit of furniture arranged around a fireplace. There were one or two doors set into each wall. 

“This is the door to my room. Don’t go in,” Snape ordered. “This,” he said, opening a door on the opposite side of the room, “is the room you will be using.” He opened it up and indicated that Potter should go in. It was quite nice, with a big bed against the far wall, a wardrobe and chest of drawers, its own fireplace, and a wonderfully thick rug. The walls were white, and the rug a warm golden color. “We share the bathroom. If the door is locked, I am using the room. Spend no more than twenty minutes in the bathroom at any one time; there’s no reason to dawdle there.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“I will order food. You unpack.” Snape began. 

“Sir? May I use magic to do it?”

“You are at Hogwarts–so yes. Limited by the usual restrictions–I assume you haven’t forgotten the rules in the last two weeks?” Snape asked rather cuttingly. He didn’t let Potter answer, but said, “Of course you remember them. You have to know what they are to be able to break them so often–and so spectacularly.” He whirled and stomped away.

He had a Potter in his rooms, would have to teach him all manner of lessons this summer and there was a tiny tiny bit of sympathy growing in his heart towards the almost-in-Sytherin brat. 

He was sure something was going to go horribly wrong on a daily basis. 

It probably wasn't a good thing that he found himself, in a very twisted way, looking forward to it.


End file.
